(no subject)
Title: Define Dangerous
Characters: Sylar, Claire.
Spoilers: Up to Season 2.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3131
Chapter: 20/?
Previously: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19,
Summary: While escaping the Company, Sylar meets up with someone from his past. Together, they must piece together some semblance of normality after years of captivity. Future AU.
In this small coastal town, they could find no place else to stay for the night but this pathetically romantic bed and breakfast. Sylar plopped down in the chair that occupied the small nitch in their room. After they finished checking in, Sylar was stuck coming up with a plan to attack their newest problem.
Peter wouldn't see Claire and Claire was a wreck.
After checking in for the night, Claire grew eerily quiet. A few times Sylar tried to drag her out of her self-induced withdrawal; he struck up failing conversations with little pieces of small trivia, a few jokes to get her to laugh. Nothing worked. She left the room once they unpacked, returning a little while later with what looked like a sewing kit from the front desk.
She came in, opened up the kit and spilled its contents on the neatly made bed. He watched from the corner of the room as Claire searched for what she was so intent on finding. From the pile of bobbins and pins, buttons and ribbon, she pulled a pair of scissors.
“Claire, what are you doing?” He asked, suddenly afraid to find out. There was something in her sad smile that terrified him. When she gripped the scissors tighter and refused to answer, he knew they were in trouble. She headed into the bathroom, still so silent. He stood up, following her but stayed outside the door when he asked, “Claire? Are you okay? Answer me or I'm coming in there after you.”
“Go away.” She called back, her voice cracking on her answer.
He heard her crying; it was about the worst thing he could remember hearing in a long time. Claire yelped in pain and Sylar couldn't hold back any longer. He phased through the door and saw the scissors sticking out of her chest, like she tried to cut out her own heart. Flashbacks of his mother in that very same pose gave him pause, his breath caught in his throat. “What the hell are you doing?!”
Claire's light cry turned to hysterical sobs when she was discovered. As Sylar stood petrified and caught up in his own memories, she took the scissors out of her chest and plunged them in her side. The hole over her heart closed up but the blood stain and rip in her shirt remained.
Claire didn't stop there. She pulled out the scissor from her side and stuck it in again and again, making bloody wound after bloody wound.
“Don't you see? It doesn't matter how much I bleed.. it doesn't matter how much they cut me, or what they do to me.. if they stick needles in me or kill my father, or leave my family for dead.. it'll just heal, right. That's what they were expecting.. I'll be fine.”
“Claire, you're far from fine right now.” Sylar inched closer, like he was attending to a hurt animal in the woods. If not careful, they would attack just as soon as let their rescuer help them. Plus, experience taught him not to rush at someone who was holding scissors. That never ended well. He hoped this wasn't a repeat performance of that memory he would have rather forgotten. “Why don't you give me the scissors?”
“Why can't you just leave me alone?” Her face screwed up in pain and anger as Claire spit her reply back at him. “Why are you trying so hard to make everything right again?”
“It's what I do.” An apology came from his lips, offering the only explanation he could give. He made a grab for the weapon but Claire dodged away. “I fix things.”
“Well, you can't fix me so fucking stop trying! I can't be that person anymore. I can't be Claire Bennet, average high school student. I'm different.” Her mouth twisted around the last word, saying it with as much venom as she could place in two syllables.
She coughed back another sob and then got a deadly glint in her eye, an idea was forming in her mind. Sylar looked on warily as she took the scissors to her long blond hair, chopping it off to shoulder length. It was the only thing that wouldn't grow back, the only difference she could make to her outer appearance to display the change inside. Long blond tresses scattered around her feet on the floor. Finally giving up, Claire slammed the scissors into the mirror, shattering the glass. “I'm so tired of seeing that girl in the mirror. I'm not her anymore.”
Sylar raised his hand, tired of this game and the scissors sailed out of Claire's hand. When he caught them, she turned her attention towards him, rushing for the weapon. She wasn't done with it yet. She punched him in the chest, clawed at his arms and kicked at him to reach the desired item but he held it above her head, just out of reach. She left bloody marks up and down his arms, nails digging into his skin but he held tight to the scissors, letting her exhaust herself. “Claire, stop it. Stop it! I'm not going to let you keep cutting yourself on account of your fucking good-for-nothing uncle.”
She finally gave up the fight, bunching up his shirt with her hands and clung to him for support. He sighed and wrapped one hand around her quivering body. With the other, he laid the scissors on the bathroom counter and melted them to goo. He pulled her to him and ran a hand through her shortened hair. His fingers followed the curve of her neck, blood from the already healed wound coloring his fingers. “Is Peter really worth all this?”
Claire wouldn't look at him. Her voice shook as she answered, “I just want my family back.. oh god, I want them back.” She was quiet for a moment before adding, “I don't even know who I am anymore. What did the company turn me into? Who am I?”
“You are,” Sylar tilted her head up so Claire would look him in the eye. He thought of the day he rescued her from the company when she seemed so little and broken and of their spats back in the honeymoon suite and the way she'd found him in the warehouse in New York City, like an angel coming to save him. “A beautiful girl.. a little crazy, but--”
A smile found its way to her small mouth, sad and unwanted but there nonetheless. “You really think I'm beautiful?”
Sylar found himself speechless under her gaze, completely powerless. He was still thinking of an answer when she stepped up on her tiptoes and kissed him. With a hunger born of a week's worth of repressing deeper emotions, he returned her kiss and relished the moment their lips met. This was something he never knew he wanted, never knew he needed and she was standing there beside him offering him everything that would make him whole.
She tasted like springtime and candy with just a touch of a passion dark enough to rival his own. This was not the girl he hunted down in Union Wells, the girl he almost killed once upon a time but someone else entirely. She was right about that. Though what she had turned into was more exquisite than the original copy, an evolutionary upgrade.
Claire pulled away from their kiss just long enough to sink her teeth into his neck, nibbling at the space just above his shoulder. He moaned at the sensation, pain mixing with pleasure and ran a hand under her shirt. Sylar lifted her off the ground and she straddled his waist, letting him carry her to the bed in the next room. She continued working her mouth around his throat, her tongue caressing the area where she'd left bite marks until Sylar placed her on the bed.
Claire started removing her shirt, eagerly awaiting the next phase. Sylar caught himself pausing in the heat of the moment. She was so young, innocent almost, she didn't need to get mixed up with a killer like himself. After taking off her own shirt, she started working on his but when he didn't make a move to reciprocate she asked, “What's wrong?”
“I-- I don't know if this is a good idea, Claire.” Sylar placed his hand over her own, stopping her from unbuttoning his shirt. He moved her hand away gently, saving her from making a mistake they would both pay for in the end. “I don't want you to regret this later. You deserve things I can't give you.”
“Can you give me this night? This one night?” She pulled him down and Sylar could only move with her beckoning, forgetting all thoughts of doing the right thing while closing the distance between his body and her own. She grabbed hold of his shirt, scrunching it between her fingers and pulled him down until their mouths met. She was a delicious yet poisonous treat. She breathed again, letting go of him. “One night, that's all I'm asking for.”
Hunger burned inside him anew. Usually, this kind of temptation only came before the kill, before he was about to take a victim, rip them apart and take something precious from them. Then again, this wasn't far from what Sylar was planning to do to her now that he had her permission. He wanted what she would give him, all of it. He wouldn't let go now until it was over. Her gift would kill the pain and the guilt and drown all the emotions that were stirring around his head.
Sylar swung his legs over her, straddling her. She was so small beneath him. “Are you sure about this?”
Claire shushed him and wrapped one arm around his waist, dragging him closer with a ferociousness born of desolation and heartache. Her voice purred out her answer, breathy and full of conviction. “I don't want to be alone tonight.”
“I won't leave you.” He told her between kisses as his mouth moved from her lips, to her neck and down to her bare breasts. He knew then that no matter what happened, Sylar would not let danger anywhere near this girl. She needed a protector and that's what he would be for her. Forever.
Claire got his shirt off and chucked it in a pile beside the bed. Her fingers touched the little marks along his chest, scars he'd acquired through the years. She stopped on an old one, larger than the rest, that ran from his bellybutton all the way up the front of his ribs. “What happened?”
Sylar took her fingers away and sucked on each one of them before answering. “Primatech. First year I was there, some months into my stay, they decided to cut me open to see what made me tick. It was, needless to say, not a fun experience.”
“How do you do it?”
“Do what?” He asked and then nibbled her ear, revealing in the smell of her hair. She seemed to be made of sunshine, the light he'd never let into his life. Now it was bright and blinding, but it warmed him so much that he didn't care. All his life, Sylar had been trying to find a way to feel this warmth.
“Live with what they did to you and not go crazy.” She answered as he tickled her earlobe. Her hands rested on his naked shoulders, her touch so full of heat. “I was only there two years and I'm not exactly the picture of sanity here.”
“You're not that crazy.” He pulled away and looked into her eyes, but her focus was still on the old wound. She seemed so worried for him, Sylar forced himself to make light of the incident. Sarcasm filled his voice as he joked, “Besides they sewed me back up again. That was nice of them.”
She pursed her lips, not able to find the humor in it. “But don't you ever want to want to go crazy.. don't you ever want to get back those years they stole from you?”
He closed his eyes, whispering with such pure honesty that it hurt. “Everyday.”
A frown fell across her lips; her thoughts never far from what they had both lived through. Sylar wanted to take her away from that world but it seemed to stay with her wherever they went, always haunting her and waiting to pounce. “It's not fair, what they did to us. They destroyed our lives and they're still hunting us. It'll never stop.”
Sylar hovered over her, staying still as Claire ran her finger along his scar. Her touch replaced memories of Primatech's torture. Maybe it had all been worth it, to be held this way by someone like her, maybe there was a reason. “You're right. They'll always be out there but they don't own us, Claire.”
“If they don't own us anymore, then who does?” Claire sought belonging, a person to hold onto in the future. He struggled to tell her that he couldn't be there for her forever, but before Sylar could reply, her hands reached for his belt buckle, undoing it and then working on getting his pants off too. “Can I be yours?”
He breathed in her scent, running his tongue against her fair neck to taste her innocence. He wondered if she had done this before, maybe with West. There was an eagerness burning inside her and a deep desire to please him that made him question whether she was a virgin. Not that Sylar had that much experience in the field either, his conquests had always come in the form of murder and death before. This was a whole other game, giving life to both of them instead of taking it away from the other.
“I need you,” Claire whispered in his ear as he entered her and caused her to wince. He slid into her and she winced. “I need this.”
He couldn't give her much but Sylar could give her this one night to take the pain away. One night and then he would be gone. They both needed this and he couldn't bring himself to say no.
In the middle of the night, Sylar woke to find himself tangled in the arms of the young blond, a beautiful girl who was nothing but trouble since the moment they started out on this trip together. She laid her head on his chest, her small naked body breathing softly as she slept.
Somehow he found it harder to forgive himself for sleeping with her than to forgive all the trouble Claire caused him up to this point. He shouldn't have done it, not last night while she wasn't thinking straight. She would hate herself in the morning. Too many days spent on the road and too many hopes dashed away left her torn in two and longing for something she might never find. A home. A family.
It was all she wanted in the world, the only thing she could have after the company stole everything else from her. It was something Sylar could not give her. That decision and the power that came with it was taken from his hands and placed in those of his enemy, Peter Petrelli.
Sylar sighed, brushing her hair away from her face while she slept. In all his years, Sylar never felt more inadequate. He'd had been trying to help, to fix her and make her whole again, but people weren't like timepieces. Sometimes they couldn't be put back together again. “I'm sorry. I wish I knew how to help you.”
He shifted Claire's weight off of him and onto the pillow beside him, making sure not to wake her. After the fight with Peter last night, she needed to sleep and gather her energy again. That one argument caused all the light to drain out of her. It messed with her mind so much that sleeping with him seemed like the logical course of actions.
He swung his feet onto the floor. The girl didn't know what she was getting herself into. Sylar wasn't proud of all the things he'd done in his life but he still wouldn't change it. The rules he'd broken were necessary to turn him into the man he was today. Every betrayal and murder was done to carefully orchestrate his fate. If she got caught in his web, Claire would have to change for him and he really didn't want her to.
While Sylar searched the room for his pants, he imagined Claire living with him, eventually murdering people with him and hiding from the police. It would destroy her, he realized as he climbed back into his pants. His world was no place for Claire to live, even if she had no place to go.
A strange emotion took hold of him as he watched over Claire. It took him a while to put his finger on it and fully make the connection from the heavy feeling in his heart to being able to name the emotion. It was guilt. Something he rarely felt and when he did, Sylar usually repressed it. He felt it now though and would not turn away. He had a job to finish, if Sylar could only figure out how to go about doing that.
He hadn't been expecting Peter's reaction, hadn't expected to be shown the door after so many days spent searching for him. After dressing, he bent down beside Claire and was glad she was still sleeping when he spoke. “I know you can't hear me but I'm going to make things right again. Then we can go our separate ways. You can have the family you want and I'll get my life back.”
She woke slightly, still half asleep and mumbled something that sounded like, “What?”
“Nothing.” He shook his head sadly. His words weren't important, she didn't need to know the plan. He would take care of it all. He bent near her, wanting to kiss her goodbye but thought better of it. Instead, he whispered in her ear. “Get some rest, Claire. Things'll be better in the morning. I promise.”
Sylar picked the car keys up off the dresser. He jingled them in his hand, getting back to the reality of the plan that was forming in his head. He would find Peter and make that boy understand the importance of this girl here. If that failed and Peter refused to see the light, they could always pick up the epic battle that they left off years ago. Hopefully, the first option worked before Sylar had to resort to the second, for Claire's sake.
..to be continued..
Characters: Sylar, Claire.
Spoilers: Up to Season 2.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3131
Chapter: 20/?
Previously: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19,
Summary: While escaping the Company, Sylar meets up with someone from his past. Together, they must piece together some semblance of normality after years of captivity. Future AU.
In this small coastal town, they could find no place else to stay for the night but this pathetically romantic bed and breakfast. Sylar plopped down in the chair that occupied the small nitch in their room. After they finished checking in, Sylar was stuck coming up with a plan to attack their newest problem.
Peter wouldn't see Claire and Claire was a wreck.
After checking in for the night, Claire grew eerily quiet. A few times Sylar tried to drag her out of her self-induced withdrawal; he struck up failing conversations with little pieces of small trivia, a few jokes to get her to laugh. Nothing worked. She left the room once they unpacked, returning a little while later with what looked like a sewing kit from the front desk.
She came in, opened up the kit and spilled its contents on the neatly made bed. He watched from the corner of the room as Claire searched for what she was so intent on finding. From the pile of bobbins and pins, buttons and ribbon, she pulled a pair of scissors.
“Claire, what are you doing?” He asked, suddenly afraid to find out. There was something in her sad smile that terrified him. When she gripped the scissors tighter and refused to answer, he knew they were in trouble. She headed into the bathroom, still so silent. He stood up, following her but stayed outside the door when he asked, “Claire? Are you okay? Answer me or I'm coming in there after you.”
“Go away.” She called back, her voice cracking on her answer.
He heard her crying; it was about the worst thing he could remember hearing in a long time. Claire yelped in pain and Sylar couldn't hold back any longer. He phased through the door and saw the scissors sticking out of her chest, like she tried to cut out her own heart. Flashbacks of his mother in that very same pose gave him pause, his breath caught in his throat. “What the hell are you doing?!”
Claire's light cry turned to hysterical sobs when she was discovered. As Sylar stood petrified and caught up in his own memories, she took the scissors out of her chest and plunged them in her side. The hole over her heart closed up but the blood stain and rip in her shirt remained.
Claire didn't stop there. She pulled out the scissor from her side and stuck it in again and again, making bloody wound after bloody wound.
“Don't you see? It doesn't matter how much I bleed.. it doesn't matter how much they cut me, or what they do to me.. if they stick needles in me or kill my father, or leave my family for dead.. it'll just heal, right. That's what they were expecting.. I'll be fine.”
“Claire, you're far from fine right now.” Sylar inched closer, like he was attending to a hurt animal in the woods. If not careful, they would attack just as soon as let their rescuer help them. Plus, experience taught him not to rush at someone who was holding scissors. That never ended well. He hoped this wasn't a repeat performance of that memory he would have rather forgotten. “Why don't you give me the scissors?”
“Why can't you just leave me alone?” Her face screwed up in pain and anger as Claire spit her reply back at him. “Why are you trying so hard to make everything right again?”
“It's what I do.” An apology came from his lips, offering the only explanation he could give. He made a grab for the weapon but Claire dodged away. “I fix things.”
“Well, you can't fix me so fucking stop trying! I can't be that person anymore. I can't be Claire Bennet, average high school student. I'm different.” Her mouth twisted around the last word, saying it with as much venom as she could place in two syllables.
She coughed back another sob and then got a deadly glint in her eye, an idea was forming in her mind. Sylar looked on warily as she took the scissors to her long blond hair, chopping it off to shoulder length. It was the only thing that wouldn't grow back, the only difference she could make to her outer appearance to display the change inside. Long blond tresses scattered around her feet on the floor. Finally giving up, Claire slammed the scissors into the mirror, shattering the glass. “I'm so tired of seeing that girl in the mirror. I'm not her anymore.”
Sylar raised his hand, tired of this game and the scissors sailed out of Claire's hand. When he caught them, she turned her attention towards him, rushing for the weapon. She wasn't done with it yet. She punched him in the chest, clawed at his arms and kicked at him to reach the desired item but he held it above her head, just out of reach. She left bloody marks up and down his arms, nails digging into his skin but he held tight to the scissors, letting her exhaust herself. “Claire, stop it. Stop it! I'm not going to let you keep cutting yourself on account of your fucking good-for-nothing uncle.”
She finally gave up the fight, bunching up his shirt with her hands and clung to him for support. He sighed and wrapped one hand around her quivering body. With the other, he laid the scissors on the bathroom counter and melted them to goo. He pulled her to him and ran a hand through her shortened hair. His fingers followed the curve of her neck, blood from the already healed wound coloring his fingers. “Is Peter really worth all this?”
Claire wouldn't look at him. Her voice shook as she answered, “I just want my family back.. oh god, I want them back.” She was quiet for a moment before adding, “I don't even know who I am anymore. What did the company turn me into? Who am I?”
“You are,” Sylar tilted her head up so Claire would look him in the eye. He thought of the day he rescued her from the company when she seemed so little and broken and of their spats back in the honeymoon suite and the way she'd found him in the warehouse in New York City, like an angel coming to save him. “A beautiful girl.. a little crazy, but--”
A smile found its way to her small mouth, sad and unwanted but there nonetheless. “You really think I'm beautiful?”
Sylar found himself speechless under her gaze, completely powerless. He was still thinking of an answer when she stepped up on her tiptoes and kissed him. With a hunger born of a week's worth of repressing deeper emotions, he returned her kiss and relished the moment their lips met. This was something he never knew he wanted, never knew he needed and she was standing there beside him offering him everything that would make him whole.
She tasted like springtime and candy with just a touch of a passion dark enough to rival his own. This was not the girl he hunted down in Union Wells, the girl he almost killed once upon a time but someone else entirely. She was right about that. Though what she had turned into was more exquisite than the original copy, an evolutionary upgrade.
Claire pulled away from their kiss just long enough to sink her teeth into his neck, nibbling at the space just above his shoulder. He moaned at the sensation, pain mixing with pleasure and ran a hand under her shirt. Sylar lifted her off the ground and she straddled his waist, letting him carry her to the bed in the next room. She continued working her mouth around his throat, her tongue caressing the area where she'd left bite marks until Sylar placed her on the bed.
Claire started removing her shirt, eagerly awaiting the next phase. Sylar caught himself pausing in the heat of the moment. She was so young, innocent almost, she didn't need to get mixed up with a killer like himself. After taking off her own shirt, she started working on his but when he didn't make a move to reciprocate she asked, “What's wrong?”
“I-- I don't know if this is a good idea, Claire.” Sylar placed his hand over her own, stopping her from unbuttoning his shirt. He moved her hand away gently, saving her from making a mistake they would both pay for in the end. “I don't want you to regret this later. You deserve things I can't give you.”
“Can you give me this night? This one night?” She pulled him down and Sylar could only move with her beckoning, forgetting all thoughts of doing the right thing while closing the distance between his body and her own. She grabbed hold of his shirt, scrunching it between her fingers and pulled him down until their mouths met. She was a delicious yet poisonous treat. She breathed again, letting go of him. “One night, that's all I'm asking for.”
Hunger burned inside him anew. Usually, this kind of temptation only came before the kill, before he was about to take a victim, rip them apart and take something precious from them. Then again, this wasn't far from what Sylar was planning to do to her now that he had her permission. He wanted what she would give him, all of it. He wouldn't let go now until it was over. Her gift would kill the pain and the guilt and drown all the emotions that were stirring around his head.
Sylar swung his legs over her, straddling her. She was so small beneath him. “Are you sure about this?”
Claire shushed him and wrapped one arm around his waist, dragging him closer with a ferociousness born of desolation and heartache. Her voice purred out her answer, breathy and full of conviction. “I don't want to be alone tonight.”
“I won't leave you.” He told her between kisses as his mouth moved from her lips, to her neck and down to her bare breasts. He knew then that no matter what happened, Sylar would not let danger anywhere near this girl. She needed a protector and that's what he would be for her. Forever.
Claire got his shirt off and chucked it in a pile beside the bed. Her fingers touched the little marks along his chest, scars he'd acquired through the years. She stopped on an old one, larger than the rest, that ran from his bellybutton all the way up the front of his ribs. “What happened?”
Sylar took her fingers away and sucked on each one of them before answering. “Primatech. First year I was there, some months into my stay, they decided to cut me open to see what made me tick. It was, needless to say, not a fun experience.”
“How do you do it?”
“Do what?” He asked and then nibbled her ear, revealing in the smell of her hair. She seemed to be made of sunshine, the light he'd never let into his life. Now it was bright and blinding, but it warmed him so much that he didn't care. All his life, Sylar had been trying to find a way to feel this warmth.
“Live with what they did to you and not go crazy.” She answered as he tickled her earlobe. Her hands rested on his naked shoulders, her touch so full of heat. “I was only there two years and I'm not exactly the picture of sanity here.”
“You're not that crazy.” He pulled away and looked into her eyes, but her focus was still on the old wound. She seemed so worried for him, Sylar forced himself to make light of the incident. Sarcasm filled his voice as he joked, “Besides they sewed me back up again. That was nice of them.”
She pursed her lips, not able to find the humor in it. “But don't you ever want to want to go crazy.. don't you ever want to get back those years they stole from you?”
He closed his eyes, whispering with such pure honesty that it hurt. “Everyday.”
A frown fell across her lips; her thoughts never far from what they had both lived through. Sylar wanted to take her away from that world but it seemed to stay with her wherever they went, always haunting her and waiting to pounce. “It's not fair, what they did to us. They destroyed our lives and they're still hunting us. It'll never stop.”
Sylar hovered over her, staying still as Claire ran her finger along his scar. Her touch replaced memories of Primatech's torture. Maybe it had all been worth it, to be held this way by someone like her, maybe there was a reason. “You're right. They'll always be out there but they don't own us, Claire.”
“If they don't own us anymore, then who does?” Claire sought belonging, a person to hold onto in the future. He struggled to tell her that he couldn't be there for her forever, but before Sylar could reply, her hands reached for his belt buckle, undoing it and then working on getting his pants off too. “Can I be yours?”
He breathed in her scent, running his tongue against her fair neck to taste her innocence. He wondered if she had done this before, maybe with West. There was an eagerness burning inside her and a deep desire to please him that made him question whether she was a virgin. Not that Sylar had that much experience in the field either, his conquests had always come in the form of murder and death before. This was a whole other game, giving life to both of them instead of taking it away from the other.
“I need you,” Claire whispered in his ear as he entered her and caused her to wince. He slid into her and she winced. “I need this.”
He couldn't give her much but Sylar could give her this one night to take the pain away. One night and then he would be gone. They both needed this and he couldn't bring himself to say no.
In the middle of the night, Sylar woke to find himself tangled in the arms of the young blond, a beautiful girl who was nothing but trouble since the moment they started out on this trip together. She laid her head on his chest, her small naked body breathing softly as she slept.
Somehow he found it harder to forgive himself for sleeping with her than to forgive all the trouble Claire caused him up to this point. He shouldn't have done it, not last night while she wasn't thinking straight. She would hate herself in the morning. Too many days spent on the road and too many hopes dashed away left her torn in two and longing for something she might never find. A home. A family.
It was all she wanted in the world, the only thing she could have after the company stole everything else from her. It was something Sylar could not give her. That decision and the power that came with it was taken from his hands and placed in those of his enemy, Peter Petrelli.
Sylar sighed, brushing her hair away from her face while she slept. In all his years, Sylar never felt more inadequate. He'd had been trying to help, to fix her and make her whole again, but people weren't like timepieces. Sometimes they couldn't be put back together again. “I'm sorry. I wish I knew how to help you.”
He shifted Claire's weight off of him and onto the pillow beside him, making sure not to wake her. After the fight with Peter last night, she needed to sleep and gather her energy again. That one argument caused all the light to drain out of her. It messed with her mind so much that sleeping with him seemed like the logical course of actions.
He swung his feet onto the floor. The girl didn't know what she was getting herself into. Sylar wasn't proud of all the things he'd done in his life but he still wouldn't change it. The rules he'd broken were necessary to turn him into the man he was today. Every betrayal and murder was done to carefully orchestrate his fate. If she got caught in his web, Claire would have to change for him and he really didn't want her to.
While Sylar searched the room for his pants, he imagined Claire living with him, eventually murdering people with him and hiding from the police. It would destroy her, he realized as he climbed back into his pants. His world was no place for Claire to live, even if she had no place to go.
A strange emotion took hold of him as he watched over Claire. It took him a while to put his finger on it and fully make the connection from the heavy feeling in his heart to being able to name the emotion. It was guilt. Something he rarely felt and when he did, Sylar usually repressed it. He felt it now though and would not turn away. He had a job to finish, if Sylar could only figure out how to go about doing that.
He hadn't been expecting Peter's reaction, hadn't expected to be shown the door after so many days spent searching for him. After dressing, he bent down beside Claire and was glad she was still sleeping when he spoke. “I know you can't hear me but I'm going to make things right again. Then we can go our separate ways. You can have the family you want and I'll get my life back.”
She woke slightly, still half asleep and mumbled something that sounded like, “What?”
“Nothing.” He shook his head sadly. His words weren't important, she didn't need to know the plan. He would take care of it all. He bent near her, wanting to kiss her goodbye but thought better of it. Instead, he whispered in her ear. “Get some rest, Claire. Things'll be better in the morning. I promise.”
Sylar picked the car keys up off the dresser. He jingled them in his hand, getting back to the reality of the plan that was forming in his head. He would find Peter and make that boy understand the importance of this girl here. If that failed and Peter refused to see the light, they could always pick up the epic battle that they left off years ago. Hopefully, the first option worked before Sylar had to resort to the second, for Claire's sake.
..to be continued..